


Light Em Up

by Nenagh24 (EverFascinated)



Series: Of Zombies and What Comes After [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Once again more lighthearted than the AU tags make it sound, Pre-Relationship, Steter Week 2020, idk how to write angst, pack of 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26534368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverFascinated/pseuds/Nenagh24
Summary: Zombies. One more thing to check off on the ‘they reallydoexist’ list, he supposed. Getting rid of themby himselfwas not something he anticipated when they first popped up, but if he was the only one who would even attempt the trip then he reserved the right to complain viciously about the others as he went.Suddenly having backup wasn’t expected, but Stiles always knew Peter loved exceeding expectations. Drama Queen.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Of Zombies and What Comes After [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930288
Comments: 5
Kudos: 205





	Light Em Up

“When I said ‘I’ll do it myself’ I didn’t mean I wanted to do it _by_ myself.” Shifting his slightly sweaty grip on the heavy container, Stiles shrugged his backpack’s only remaining strap into a more comfortable position and continued ranting. “All that talk about pack being family, yet not one of them could come with me to help put a stop to this. After everything we’ve done, that I’ve done, that dad-”

His throat closed up a bit even as he silently finished the thought.

That dad did.

Stiles’ steps slowed for a moment as the loss hit him again. He forced it back once more, breathing through the emotions and blinking away the memories with some difficulty even now. Focusing on the task at hand helped. Breakdowns could happen once those responsible were taken care of.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Continuing the familiar diatribe was cathartic even now, when the only audience was the relatively empty forest around him. “‘We need to protect the uninfected!’ You know what, Scotty?”

The silence of the forest was the only answer to his rhetorical question. The rustle of tree leaves, the skittering of a small animal through the thicket some distance to his left, and the ominous, distant moaning he hoped he never got used to.

Well, if everything worked out, maybe he wouldn’t have to.

Optimism really wasn’t his thing but, with the whole world going topsy-turvy, he thought he would give it a shot.

“You’re right!” He answered his own question, seeing as the woodland creatures weren’t going to. Stiles could easily hold a conversation on his own, he had years of practice after all. “We _do_ need to protect the uninfected and if this were anywhere _close_ to a normal infection forcibly quarentening the town _may_ have been a viable stopgap. _How-ev-er_ , Lydia and I proved to you that the literal, actual _zombie_ infections that are _raising the dead_ are magical in nature and-” Stiles’ bat swooped through the air as he emphasised the word by gesturing angrily to no one “-AND had a verifiable source.”

Pausing by the remains of a fallen tree, Stiles set the plastic container down with as much care as he could scrounge up. A quick glance at his surroundings verified that no more fucking zombonis were headed his way. Still alert for any sign of the shambling undead, he reached for the compass that was hanging under his shirt, his rune-etched bat still held with a sure grip in his other hand.

“We showed you a fucking verifiable source _and_ proof that cutting infected people off from the magic will stop the reanimation and spread.” The rant was more of a scathing mutter now, as he tried to forget what they did to prove it. In the end it was a cold comfort, knowing that his dad was no longer among those still attacking the living. “Which means that cutting off the power at the very traceable source should stop this thing dead.”

He snorted shortly at his own unintentional pun as he read the compass. It wasn’t as immovable these days which meant he was getting close.

Good, it looked like he was still on track.

Stiles dropped the device back under his collar and bent to pick up the plastic jug once again, grimacing when it nearly slipped through his fingers. If any part of his shirt or jacket was clean enough, he’d wipe the handle off. Hell, if anyone were with him he could hand it off to one of _them_ for what was hopefully the last leg of this trip. But no, of course there wasn’t. They couldn’t spare anyone from the pack to help him _end_ this thing.

That would be too logical!

“Freaking ‘we need to protect the uninfected’, my ass!” The anger made it easier to pick up the heavy container even if he didn’t get the satisfaction of saying to Scott’s face. “You’re just protecting one little town without any real authority to do so!”

“Was this rant a collective work by yourself and Miss Martin or did you just exchange notes on the highlights before you left?”

The jug hit the ground again with a low sloshing noise, thankfully only dropping a few inches and landing solidly on its end when Stiles whipped around, bat at the ready.

He blinked at the familiar man who was standing just a few feet away in all of his slightly dirty, v-necked glory.

Not that Stiles could talk. He’d only had enough space in his bag for a few changes of clothes and using a bat as a primary weapon tended to get gore splatters everywhere. The number of times he was shot at during his trip up here because people thought he was a zombie himself because of all the stuff was either hilarious or terrifying.

“Peter?” The name sounded a little breathless even to his own ears. Stiles’ adrenaline was spiking and had no outlet, okay? He was allowed to sound a little out of breath when his heart just tried to jump out of his chest via his throat.

“Stiles.”

It was unfair how that stupid smirk made him feel more grounded. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was so used to seeing it in stressful situations or because Peter wore it with enough confidence to fill both locker rooms at the Superbowl.

Stiles rolled his eyes at the werewolf instead of looking closer at those thoughts and turned to check his gas can, relaxing further when he saw that it hadn’t opened or spilled in the drop.

“Lydia called for you?” That didn’t sound like her, but hey, they were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse so apparently anything was possible. He was more surprised that the call even made it through seeing as most of the cell towers were too overloaded to work reliably.

“I happened to be in the neighborhood.” Peter answered casually, as if friendly visits from someone who practically fled the town were normal.

Wait.

'In the neighborhood' and seeing Lydia were two very different things especially with their history. Frowning, he looked back up at Peter only for the werewolf to continue before Stiles could open his mouth.

“She found me shortly after I arrived, probably desperate to speak to someone else with a brain.” Peter paused and his smirk widened at the look on Stiles’ face. “As I mentioned, your complaints were very similar before she sent me your way. Supposedly, I’m supposed to be your backup. ‘Undead, uninfectable muscle’, I believe were her exact words.”

The title seemed to amuse Peter if his light tone was anything to go off of. Stiles huffed a laugh of his own in response.

“Undead basically means ‘uninfectable’ these days from what we could find, dude.” It almost made Stiles wish that he’d let his father eat himself to a heart attack years ago. Being revived on an operating table would have been enough to save him from the bite he got earlier that month.

“That might possibly explain Miss Martin’s comment.” Peter didn’t sound too sure about that. He must have found it interesting enough to share, because he continued after a pointedly raised brow from Stiles. “She wasn’t amused at McCall’s pack treating her like fine china and said something to the effect of ‘If they think I haven’t been clinically dead this whole time, they’re insane’.”

The judgmental tilt of Peter’s head let Stiles know exactly what the other man thought of the pack’s sanity. Stiles was inclined to side with him after these past two weeks of hell on earth.

“Alright then, Muscles. Grab the gas and follow me.” Stiles gestured to the gas can before fishing his compass out again to reorient himself. Once he was done confirming the direction, he looked back at Peter who was inspecting his sharpened claws.

“Are you sure you want me carrying that?” _Instead of protecting you?_ Stiles finished the question in his head and waved his bat in response.

“Who is the one with supernatural strength and who is the one with phenomenal cosmic powers?”

Peter looked intrigued.

“I hadn’t realized you were a genie. Are lamps still involved in this modern era?”

Stiles’ brown eyes glared over his sarcastic smile and he ignored the question in favor of continuing through the forest.

“Don’t forget the gas, we’ll need it to fix this.” He called over his shoulder.

There was an aggravated sigh, but the sloshing noise confirmed that the werewolf was following him with that stupid container.

“How much further is it?” Peter asked, not sounding at all bothered by the five gallon container as he fell in step beside Stiles.

“Probably close enough that if you'd found me an hour after this I would have to start calling you Tuxedo Mask.” He ignored the look Peter gave him for that, raised eyebrows and all, to point in the direction they were headed. “If I’m reading the compass right, it should be right over that knoll.”

The one nearly obscured by trees. Also the one that was getting noisier as they covered the last quarter mile between them and it.

“Judging by the growls - that I’m sure you also hear with your super special werewolf hearing - we'll have company.” Stiles adjusted his grip on the metal bat to make sure it wasn’t going to try slipping from his fingers. “Usually I would wait to see if any of them would wander off and use some experimental big guns if they didn’t. Now, however...”

“Well, don't let me keep you from learning on the job like all the other sailor scouts.” Peter said in the leading pause Stiles offered him.

Stiles made a face, wrinkling his nose at the older man’s expectant expression.

“What, so you can swoop in and offer some vague advice before swooping off the way you came?” Eyes flicking down to that dirty v-neck before offering an unimpressed look of his own. “If you want to do that, I’ll need you to clean up a bit to look the part.”

Blue eyes flashed above a sharp smirk and Stiles tried to ignore the fact that Peter could hear the way his heart reacted to that. He scowled as the smirk widened once more.

“I wasn’t aware you were into roleplay, Princess, or I would have come prepared.” Peter almost crooned, though his partially shifted teeth made it hard to pull off completely.

“Your usual fursuit will have to do, I guess.” Stiles tried for resigned, but missed if Peter’s quiet huff of laughter was anything to go by.

Any further taunting ground to a halt as they reached the bottom of the knoll and a familiar, toneless groan from the other side made them both grimace. Peter set down the gas can and flexed his fingers. Stiles’ pack landed quietly next to the container, his knees bending a little as he grasped the bat with both hands. He watched as Peter shifted, the whole werewolf snarl silently manifesting.

Their eyes met, both of them glowing supernaturally.

Just like old times, huh?

Stiles didn’t know what had them both moving forward as one, a snapping twig, a gut reaction, a familiar twitch of an eyebrow. Whatever it was didn’t really matter. They both crested the hill at the same time.

The bat swung before Stiles even registered how close the first zombie was. His fingers buzzed from the clanging _thud_ the metal made when slammed into a skull. Swinging it back, Stiles used the motion to stretch out his tense shoulders before balancing to kick at the already listing body in front of him.

It fell just in time for another to lurch into its place. A second ringing swing stopped the attacking undead in its tracks, at least a few teeth soaring in another direction entirely.

Stiles barely registered the sound of someone being gutted by sharp claws somewhere to his right. His bat sunk into the zombie’s nearly toothless mouth when the sound finally clicked in his brain. Activating the runes on his bat, he silently wondered if blindly identifying a disembowelment from sound alone said something about his life.

He pulled the metal bat from the ruins of a burned out skull and slammed down on the grasping hands of the one by his feet before they could touch him.

Nah, it was probably just the zombie infestation.

A growl accompanied the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh.

And the werewolves. Couldn’t forget them.

Ramming the bat down onto the grounded one’s skull, Stiles powered up the runes once again. The zombie screeched its last as it burned.

Alright, maybe it said at least a little about his life. But it didn’t take his love of horror movies into account, damn it! He’d known most of these sights and sounds by ten, okay?

Stiles made a face at the scent of burning flesh. Never could get used to the smell of it though, it’s not like smellovision was invented yet.

The two next to him thoroughly taken care of and with no more heading his way, Stiles turned to where Peter was cleaning his claws off over what was most likely three dismembered zombies. It was hard to tell what with them being in pieces and parts of them still flopping around uselessly.

How many there were didn’t matter to Stiles. He ignored them in favor of the real mystery.

“How the hell do you still have a clean hanky to just whip out like that?”

“Bold of you to assume I only have one.” Peter’s raised brows and straight face couldn’t hide the amused tilt of his head, the same one he used whenever he teased Lydia’s publicly ditzy charades or when he provoked Scott into another argument just for fun.

Stiles refused to fall for that bait.

Instead, he turned to the large tree near the base of the slope.

It was massive.

Its branches were wide and towered above them, leaving a ring of clear space around it as it had obviously choked out any competing trees long ago. The knoll they just fought their way over wasn’t just to one side, instead it surrounded the tree completely. A ring of raised earth and not a single sign of a den or nest to be found.

If that didn’t confirm it as a Nemeton for Stiles, the moaning zombies tied around its trunk were kind of hard to miss.

It was small compared to the stump back in Beacon, but that was only to be expected. This one was going to take the nexus the Nemeton from Beacon Hills once housed and would have within the century if this hadn’t happened first.

No chance of that happening now.

Shaking his head, Stiles crunched his way back up the knoll to retrieve his things.

By the time he got back, Peter was inspecting the three moaning humanoid creatures strung hand to hand around the baby Nemeton.

“What a waste.”

Stiles grunted in agreement, setting everything down a safe distance from the tree and the still wiggling limbs that now littered the ground.

“Now to reverse the unintentional death spell.” Crouching down a few feet from the base of the tree, Stiles examined the interrupted ritual to make sure their theory was correct. He’d never hear the end of it from Lydia if he tried to reverse the thing only to make it worse.

It’d kill him, of course, but that wouldn’t matter. Not to Lydia.

“ _Unintentional_ death spell?” Peter sounded curious. Sparing him a quick glance to confirm it wasn’t sarcastic, Stiles nodded distractedly.

“Didn’t get the whole story from Lydia then?” Stiles didn’t bother waiting for an answer. Peter was sarcastic at least half the time and, with the last question being passibly honest, he didn’t really care to hear the next one while trying to translate runes at the same time. “From what we could find, this whole ritual was supposed to empower both the tree and the person who activated the ritual to lengthen their lives. Based on the results, it obviously got way out of hand and started trying to revive anything that died while touching part of it.”

Hence the no touching aspect of this inspection. The spores might not do anything to him because his spirit registered as ‘already revived’ but that didn’t mean the Nemeton wouldn’t try and suck him in to power everything else.

“Out of hand how? Someone overreaching themselves?”

Sitting back on his heels, Stiles looked up at Peter who was watching him closely.

“Most likely? One of these three actually performing the ritual started dying for reasons unrelated to the spell and threw it off, like a heart attack or something.” Stiles rolled his eyes and shook his head at the curious look Peter was giving him. “Everyone always goes on about virgins in rituals, but what they really need are healthy people. One of Deaton's books is literally just an Aesop's Fables on how rituals go wrong, dude.”

Blue eyes narrowed and Stiles could almost see the mental note Peter was making to ‘borrow’ the book for some light reading even as he meandered closer.

“So how do we reverse it?”

Stiles looked back at the tree, glaring a bit at the runes and shaking his head with a frown. That was the kicker, wasn’t it? It took Lydia and him nearly a week of research to figure it out before he left.

“By itself, killing the caster,” he pointed to the one still holding on to a handle of a knife or dagger that was stuck in the wood, “would just stop the rate it spreads instead of getting rid of what we have, so a full reversal is what we're going to have to shoot for.”

Because sometimes the easiest answer was also the best one.

“A full reversal of a death ritual?” The question was slow, almost hesitant.

Distracted, Stiles turned his searching glare towards the man standing next to him.

“Yeah, we just do the opposite of what they did.” Magic was complicated until it wasn’t. Six of one and half a dozen of the other would restore balance even if they didn’t weigh the same.

“Then we ritually sacrifice ourselves and hope one of us lives unintentionally?” Peter asked incredulously, not enamoured with the idea for obvious reasons.

“Not _literally_ opposite. It's magic, it plays by its own rules.” Besides, adding more magical energy wouldn’t help in this case even if it was exactly opposed to the ritual still in progress.

Stiles vaguely wondered if there was a world record for longest ongoing ritual and if this zombie one broke it or if it barely scratched the surface. Shrugging it off, he straightened and headed for his pack. He wasn’t going to do this without the proper tools and he knew there was at least one in his bag, but he wasn’t sure which pocket it was in after four days of hectic travel.

“Anyway, it’s a good thing that you’re here. I could really use the help.” The first pocket was a bust and the next was just completely packed with socks. Why did he have so many? He didn’t remember packing this many. A few fell out and he tried to stuff them back in. Distracted, he continued, “Though, I completely understand if you don’t want to. I don’t want to force you into something like this.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter approaching and he glanced at him over his shoulder. When the werewolf crouched down beside him without a word, Stiles went back to digging around in his bag, heedless of the crap falling out now.

“Looking for something?”

“No, I just wanted to double check that I didn’t leave my undies behind at my last rest stop.” Stiles rolled his eyes before shaking his head at the inane question.

Peter reached out and picked up one of the fallen items. It crinkled lightly as he held it up.

“I do wonder how you would have completed a sex ritual without a partner, Princess.”

Whipping his head to the side, Stiles stared at the strip of condoms blankly for a long beat. Where the fuck did those come from? He looked down and saw that the weird packet Lydia threw into his pack before he left was open on the ground and his expression went flat. What kind of action did she think he was going to get up to out here?

Maybe a backup plan along the lines Peter was assuming?

His brain did something very similar to a record scratch at the very thought.

Ugh! Necrophiliac was _not_ on his list of descriptors.

Stiles snatched the offending items from Peter’s hand, sputtering.

“You and Lydia are the absolute - that’s just so fucking - sex with one of _those_ -” He gagged a little at the thought and stuffed the condoms back into his bag, his fingers brushing up against hard plastic as he did. Bingo. “I don’t know why I was trying to be sensitive, asshole.”

He pulled out the lighter and waved it between them. The flinch Peter gave at the sight of it was expected, but Stiles was too grossed out to care.

Much.

Stiles set it down as he shoved everything else back in the bag.

“We're opposing the _original_ spell’s intent.” He explained shortly, zipping up one pocket and moving on to the next. “As that was a life extension ritual, we've got to kill all the life that was supposed to be extended. Especially now that the tree is acting as an anchor. Unlike killing the castor, it should break the entire chain instead of just the spread.”

The slide of Peter’s arm against his when the older man reached over to pick up the discarded lighter was deliberate. Peter never touched any of the pack members without having at least two reasons to do so. Pausing in his packing, Stiles grumpily watched the plastic twist between Peter’s fingers.

“Can't blame me for wanting to try, Princess.” This close, the low words were nearly velveteen in Stiles’ ear.

Swallowing, he checked Peter’ for any of his usual teasing tells. When all he found was a serious look in those blue eyes that was more heated then sly, Stiles turned back to his bag swallowing hard.

Well, that was unexpected.

He cleared his throat and tried to push that thought aside in favor of the task at hand.

“Maybe try again when we aren't surrounded by rotting corpses, Prince Charming.” Stiles snarked back belatedly. Zipping the last pocket and grabbing the gas can, he stood up. “Now help me gas up these idiots, they've all got to go at the same time.”

It took a few trips around the tree to evenly coat all three bodies enough to ensure they’d light. Thankfully they only ran out halfway through the fourth lap.

“That won't be enough to burn them.” Peter said, looking at them with a frown and an expert eye.

“I'm not trying to cremate them, dude. I just need them to be connected and all that.” Stiles explained, trying to see the line of liquid they laid down. “The magic linking them and reanimating them is also leaching out and fuling itself on every person that dies while 'infected'. So, theoretically we light the source and templates on fire and the rest all go up at the same time. Boom, no more zombies.”

Satisfied, Stiles turned back to his partner in… heroics? A strange thing to think of with Peter involved. Stranger still was how natural it felt.

Scott not joining him wasn’t a surprise, not when he really thought about it. Peter showing up without being asked to help save the world, that felt right without even having half an hour to mull it over.

Huh.

Not for the first time, Stiles wished that his thoughts wouldn’t jump around so much. He’d almost forgotten how much harder they were to control without meds.

Thinking back, he forced himself to finish his last audible thought.

“Anyway, everyone who isn't actually dead yet will just get a fever based on similar cases that didn't become freaking viral.”

“And you're going to use a lighter to keep from tying yourself to it.” It wasn’t a question. Peter was already holding out the lighter for Stiles to take.

“Well, yeah. I'm not an idiot.” He grabbed the zippo with a flat look.

Three strikes later, the flame finally caught. Setting it to the trailing end of the gas, Stiles lit it and then stepped back to watch from a safe distance. The flame licked along the gas line, nearly guttering as it moved along the bodies until it finally circled the tree they were tied to.

He couldn’t see when the flaming ring finally closed, but Stiles knew it worked when the whole thing lit up like a tree sized bonfire.

One of the wiggling arms by the base of the knoll caught fire, and then the head a little ways up, and then the rest of the scattered body parts all at once.

Stiles smiled grimly at the whole thing and politely ignored Peter’s twitches at every new flame.

“Well, with the company you keep…” Peter commented belatedly, sounding a little strained. He trailed off when Stiles connected the teasing insult to the previous comments and turned to glare at him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. It is abundantly clear that Beacon Hills is a hot spot for Grade A Assholes, not idiots.” Thinking about everyone who he left behind he paused and grimaced before amending, “Though with all the stupid it keeps attracting it’s not an unreasonable conclusion to draw.”

“Most of us with brains left ages ago.” The observation was thrown over Peter’s shoulder, the other man already turning to make his way back towards the discarded gas can.

Stiles followed, snagging his bag and bat as he turned his back to what was now a towering inferno behind them.

“Some of us can't afford to move.” He pointed out, shrugging the bag back over his shoulder. Honestly, he was kind of dreading the return to Beacon Hills, both the trip itself and living there.

It just wouldn’t be the same with Dad gone.

“Does the dollar really hold value in a dystopia?” Peter asked mildly with an inquisitive frown.

“Dystopia?” Stiles’ question sounded incredulous even to him. Pausing on the crest of the knoll, he turned to point to the burning zombies strapped around the Nemeton’s clearing and the smoky body parts strewn around it, only the magic keeping the rest of the forest from catching. “It's been two weeks of crazy that we just cleaned up single handedly and you're calling it a dystopia?”

He jogged a bit to catch up with Peter who slowed a little to allow it. Distractedly digging in his pocket for his phone, Stiles hummed victoriously as he pulled it out. Fingers tapped impatiently on the screen as he waited for it to power up and he pointedly ignored the low power warnings as he unlocked it and pulled up his browser.

“According to the articles I read this morning, there are people in Europe who still don't _believe this even happened_.” Idiots. Like multiple countries in North and Central America would team up to lie about this and nothing else. They couldn’t even agree on how borders work. “Heck, half the people in _Beacon_ didn't believe it when I left last week.”

That actually supported Peter’s theory... hmm. Stiles waited for the werewolf to point it out with narrowed eyes.

Peter wore the ‘you can’t help stupid’ look well when he simply shrugged at Stiles’ suspicious glance.

“Speaking of Beacon, a word of warning for you: if you really want to stay in that town you prepare yourself to get outed to everyone in it,” the older man offered. Dread sliced through Stiles’ disbelieving look and he could almost feel the blood draining from his face. “Your pack wasn't being subtle.”

Stiles closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The others in the pack were never subtle, but if Peter was _warning_ him about it they must have gone ahead with their stupid little ‘reveal’ plan.

“Oh my god.”

He was glad that the hand that smacked into his own forehead wasn’t the one holding the bat.

Silver linings.

“Scott!” He raged in the general direction of Beacon Hills. It was hard to tell exactly and it wasn’t like that compass worked anything like a normal one. “I came here to fix it and you- ugh, I don't know what I expected.”

Sensibility, maybe? A single level head? Some discretion? Use of _basic fucking logic?!_ And it was all too much to ask from the Beacon Hills Pack.

“Fuck.”

“Not right now,” Peter answered smoothly, derailing Stiles’ increasingly panicked thoughts. “You made some good points earlier. I'm _absolutely_ classier than that.”

Stiles glared at him, but the subject change brought him back to their present situation. Worrying about the future of a town he was literally states away from wasn’t going to help him or them right now.

“Stop jerking me around unless you're going to let me get off, dude.” He snapped back, half serious, half… something else. Stiles wasn’t quite sure what right now, somewhere between disbelieving and frustrated, but it was hard to define it further.

He just ended a zombie apocalypse. Stiles expected a rush of joy, a feeling of satisfaction, hell, maybe a bit of closure, not disquieting revelations about his hometown and the beginnings of an awkward boner, damn it!

“Well, since you objected to the location before, how about a change in venue?” Stepping closer until their shoulders were just brushing with each step, Peter smirked over at Stiles as they continued their way back towards what passed for a roadway in this rural area.

“What are you suggesting?” Stiles asked, snark covering his surprise automatically as he gestured grandly, “A picturesque survivors camp or a cozy scorched highway?”

A convenient place for Stiles to live so that he never had to return to the dumpster fire Beacon Hills was? He snorted. Yeah and Peter would let him live there to help him raise a nice flock of _flying pigs_. Dream on, Stiles.

Turning to Peter with what he hoped was a flatly unimpressed look, Stiles rolled his eyes when Peter pretended to think it over.

“How about a mountain lodge that's secluded enough for us to act like we never noticed a single zombie?” The man finally offered.

“A mountain lo-” Stiles’ head whipped around to look at Peter and he broke off when he placed the teasing head-tilt that the older man was pairing with that expectant look. The bastard wanted to argue over the existence of a cabin and Stiles refused to give him the satisfaction, not with all that hope he was having to smother at the offer. “I don't know why I'm even questioning its existence. Did you buy it or was it willed to you by a strangely generous passing acquaintance?”

“I built it with my own two hands.”

Stiles stopped dead and tried to figure out if Peter could possibly be telling the truth.

Signs pointed to ‘No’.

The werewolf turned with a hurt expression, Peter’s free hand resting lightly over his heart as he tsked at Stiles’ disbelief. He kept up his offended manner for all of five seconds, before dropping it with a careless shrug.

“...And a group of contractors.” Peter allowed and picked up the nearly invisible path back to the road once more.

That Stiles could believe. He wondered when it was built, but he wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth by asking possibly sensitive questions.

A place away from Beacon was just what he needed.

He would also need to make sure that Scott wasn’t name dropping everyone more than human as soon as possible because a lot of his first steps hinged on whether or not he needed a new identity. It wouldn’t be easy to get, he wasn’t a hacker like Danny, but he knew enough of the strange corners of the internet due to his werewolf searches to probably get a half decent one.

They trudged along quietly for a long moment both lost in their thoughts before Peter slowed again to send Stiles an incredulous look of his own. “You didn't seriously think I'd moved down to live with Cora and Derek after all we've done to one another, did you?”

Stiles had to give him that one, he supposed. His brows raised along with his free hand as if he could physically ward off the assumption.

“Lyds and I did debate it, but while we didn’t think you would, we were never sure because the Hale name seems to be synonymous with masochism. Also, all of you seem allergic to having a job, so...” The ‘what can you do?’ was expressed entirely through his almost theatrical shrug.

“You do know that I was a lawyer before the fire?” Peter asked with a raised brow of his own. “I could have sworn I’d mentioned it once or twice.”

He had, Stiles just had trouble picturing Peter dressed in a suit and smiling on a road sign.

Then again maybe picturing him in a suit and smiling was trouble for a whole other set of reasons.

He gave himself a mental slap. Stiles needed his brain to stop latching on to these tangents so that he can make contingency plans. This wasn’t the way his life was supposed to go, damn it! He had dozens if not hundreds of five and ten year plans that needed updating asap!

“If you don't want to join me, you can just say so.”

Looking up from where he’d been glaring at the increasingly clear path in front of his feet, Stiles watched as Peter threw a quick glance his way before focusing on the path ahead. The crease in the older man’s brow spoke of concern though, even if his tone was a little short.

“I wouldn't recommend heading back to Beacon either way,” Peter continued, almost gruff but with a touch of hesitation, “especially since-”

Stiles cut him off, he knew where this was going.

“Since dad was one of the first to turn, yeah.” He was thinking the same thing himself, obviously. The dulling pain of remembering it made him wish for those straying tangents, but most vanished in the face of it.

The rest of the short trip back to the road was made in silence. Lost in his thoughts, Stiles only noticed when his sneakers transitioned from dirt to gravel to asphalt. Belatedly, he wondered what Peter thought about while Stiles was making his mental lists.

Turning from his instinctive scan of the road, pointless as it was deserted with just a bit of litter and an empty car pulled off to one side, Stiles found Peter watching him closely.

Time to make a decision then.

Stiles gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment, but the choice wasn’t actually all that difficult. Of the dozens of plans he made, scrapped, and reworked during the walk, none of those that survived the process saw him going back to Beacon Hills.

“How far is it to that lodge of yours?”

Some tension bled out of Peter’s shoulders and it surprised Stiles a little. He wasn’t aware that the lack of an answer bothered Peter at all. He guessed that answered at least some part of his idle wonder about Peter’s thoughts on the way back to the road.

“By foot? About a week or two north east.” Peter pulled a fob from his pocket and clicked it. The lone car responded and unlocked its doors with a flash of its lights. “By car it's about 12 hours.”

Stiles smiled a bit at his theatrics.

“Sold.”

**Author's Note:**

> Steter week was at least a month ago, but I thought I'd post this and it's sorta-sequel even if I missed the window.


End file.
